June 10, 2008
Couple Admits to Beating 3-Year-Old Boy
The godmother of a 3-year-old boy and her boyfriend reportedly admitted to prosecutors that they beat the child, who died on Friday. However, Nymeem Cheatham and Lemar Martin, who are being held without bail, did not confess to killing Kyle Smith, who was found with cigarette burns, bruises all over his body, a torn tongue, a broken pelvis, and signs of sexual abuse.
Back in 2007, when Cheatham petitioned for custody of Kyle (his mother left him with her), the Administration for Children's Services found Cheatham's "house in order and the child happy and healthy." But it turns out that Cheatham was wanted in Texas for abusing her biological children, ages 4, 5, 9 and 13. An ACS spokesperson said the agency couldn't have known, "There is no national child-welfare database. We can only run records through the New York state child database." And ACS has no record of a complaint from Smiths' paternal grandmother or the police that was allegedly made in February.
Kyle's father, Elliott Smith, is devastated, according to his mother who spoke to the Daily News: "He's in mourning right now. He's not doing very well at all, but he's hanging on." The News adds, "it was unclear why Smith did not claim his younger son" and that Smith could not be reached.
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Mandatory Norplant at 13; pass a test to procreate.
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Let me be first to volunteer to kill these two myself, with my bare hands.
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A torn tongue? Jesus.
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"Officials in Texas received calls in July 2002 that Cheatham and her husband repeatedly locked the children in a bedroom and left them home alone for hours at a time. The children used a broken window to escape the filthy house with no running water and beg for food, Texas court records show.
It took more than an hour to coax the children, who ranged in age from 3 to 13, to open the door for social workers, court records show. One girl was hiding under a bed. Cheatham's children were placed with relatives in December 2003. It was unclear where Cheatham's 13-year-old brother was placed."
Why wasn't Cheatham in jail? Jesus.
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If these two aren't convicted and locked away forever, then I will have lost any shred of confidence I have left in the American legal system. (Don't call it a "justice" system.)
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From the get-go, this kid never stood a chance.
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so so so sad.
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Looking at that photograph only reminds how depraved you have to be to hurt someone so innocent and defenseless. Needless to say, there is plenty of blame to go around for his death.
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Sick. Beyond sick. Why was she still walking around?
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why are these people having kids to their care!
First send those fkrs to sleep!!
Second don't let fuckers procreate.
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my heart bleeds for this poor little boy. they tortured him, those sadists. that poor sweet child, what he must've gone through.
what's wrong with our society? why do people do these things? is it congenital behavior, or does it develop over time? and to think of how many kids are getting abused right this minute. we should all vow to get involved in some capacity to prevent these horrors from happening.
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Someday we are going to have to realize we are a modern nation with some sick people and not a collection of local farming communities. This story points out child abusers from Texas could do what they wanted in NY because there's no national database and a recent one was about a New Yorker who had no business driving went to NJ for a drivers license. But, FedEx knows exactly where the packaged, fresh lobsters are at all times.
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The ACS always has a fucking excuse, don't they? "Oh, there's no national database" and "Oh, there's no record of complaints with the police". And so another sweet innocent child is rendered to the wolves. There is no pity on this earth or anywhere else for those two, but there's likewise little pity for an agency that is really nothing more than a child disposal operation.